Risen Life Everyday

What an incredible time of year this is! The beginnings of new life are everywhere around us as we celebrate the Life-out-of-Death that Jesus walked and was and opened to us all.

Since there is too much 'real life' going on for me at the moment, with end of term tasks and tiredness, to put flesh on all the bare-bone thoughts growing inside me about this astounding Life, please allow me to repost something I wrote almost two years ago about life and bread and resurrection and everyday miracles. I don't have sourdough bread on the go right now, but the red clover sprouts on my windowsill and the milk kefir growing in a mason jar in my basement are screaming LIFE to me every day! What is screaming LIFE at you?!

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"It is Risen! It is risen indeed!"

I’m talking here about my sourdough bread, of which I just made another delicious batch yesterday, this time with half unbleached white and half wholewheat flour. Making sourdough bread is a beautifully simple process, but as there is undoubtedly some science to it too, I have taken to recording how I feed the starter and make the bread each time, and what the results are, so as to learn and be able to bake the best bread possible. And each time, documented in my special new food journal, there is exultation (It has risen!) when I come to check the dough after a night of the natural yeasts working their wonders, and find that it has turned from a solid lump to an evidently living mass: a being that has grown to almost twice its original size, that sighs and moves when you touch it, and exudes a sweet, yeasty and slightly aromatic odour.

As I once again write my jubilant testimony to this miraculous transformation, I realize that it has a distinct resonance with the Paschal greeting – “Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!” – hence the title of this blog post. But while such rejoicing is fitting for Easter Sunday morning resurrection, is it really appropriate for Monday morning bread-making? Is my title, or my sense of triumph, somehow sacrilegious?

Well let me say first of all that when I go downstairs in the morning, open the corner cupboard, take out the big blue bowl, lift the plate covering my dough and find that it is changed, it always feels like an everyday miracle. I almost gasp each time, never ceasing to be surprised and delighted, particularly because all I have done is mix a little salt, five cups of flour and two cups of water into a cup measure of starter, stirred it and left it alone. No kneading needed! With next to no effort and very little time on my part, a living food has been created that will nourish the bodies and souls of my family. This is not of my doing. I may be an agent but I am not the source. This bread is testament to the life we are surrounded by: the life (and natural yeast!) that flows in the air we breathe and the water we drink, that resides in the warmth of the sun and the goodness of the earth. The bread is testament to the fact that this life, when acknowledged, respected and wisely harnessed, can yield revitalizing miracles day after day.

So my sourdough bread is a miracle to me: maybe not on the scale of the Resurrected Christ, but nevertheless part of the same Life that comes to me as pure gift and deserves to be celebrated. My Easter-like rejoicing over bread is, in fact, absolutely appropriate, because it reflects the ongoing incarnational nature of the life of God as I perceive it. Ronald Rolheiser describes it like this:

The God who has become incarnate in human flesh is found, first and foremost, not in meditation and monasteries, although God is found there, but in our homes. As Nikos Kazantzakis puts it: “Wherever you find husband and wife, that’s where you find God; wherever children and petty cares and cooking and arguments and reconciliation are, that is where God is too.” The God of the incarnation is more domestic than monastic.

Rolheiser also discusses the fact that, in Christian theology, ‘the body of Christ’ refers all at once to the human Jesus, the bread of the Eucharist, and the community of faith. God has become flesh and bone, and bread and wine, and blood and tears. I love this, all the more because it has taken me so long to grasp it, as the false divisions – between spiritual and material, sacred and profane, human and divine – finally begin to crumble. The wonderful Rolheiser again:

God takes on flesh so that every home becomes a church, every child becomes the Christ-child, and all food and drink becomes a sacrament. God’s many faces are now everywhere, in flesh, tempered and turned down, so that our human eyes can see him.*

But often I don’t see, so I am grateful for the moments when my eyes are opened: when the lifting of the plate covering the waiting dough feels like the rolling away of the stone from a tomb; when the risen bread resonates with the surprise of new life; when the five cups of flour and the two of water are as miraculous to me as the five loaves and two fish; and when I am happy to sit as a family around a loaf of warm, fresh bread and delight together in sharing both its earthy goodness and our imperfect, sacred love.

So when I look on each new loaf with its crispy crust and marvelously moist yet airy interior, I will continue to exclaim: “It is risen! Alleluia!”

*All Ronald Rolheiser quotes are taken from one of my all-time favourite books Seeking Spirituality, published in North America as The Holy Longing. He quotes from Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of Christ.

Enough for me

--------The foot of the cross--------

Enough for me this place, still strange to me and me a stranger

Enough to see this small patch of rough wood

The rest towering too tall, too lofty looming for me to grasp

Enough for me the gift of this mysterious tree

A space carved out for me beneath and within it

A bowl hollowed hallowed and now smoothed endless in capacity

Enough for me to know myself somehow carried there

Received and held there

Despite myself, uncomprehending and unsure

Enough for me to rest here, sleep here

Soul-stilled and quiet waiting

Weaned with, and weaned within

Things fall apart

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” (Yeats)

Do all of us not feel this, live this, at times?

Things fall apart. People fall apart. Communities fall apart. Our minds and hearts fall apart; our families and relationships and jobs and marriages and hopes and dreams fall apart.

One moment all is spinning nicely; we feel ‘together’; everything fits and works and makes sense.

The next, everything seems to spin suddenly and noiselessly out of control, as if one of the solar system’s planets has somehow gone out of orbit, causing a ripple effect of chaos and destruction.

But even when things don’t fall apart, how often do we live in dread that they are and will? Sometimes I can almost see the white knuckles around me as we all hang on for dear life on this ride called life, trying desperately to keep ourselves together, our worlds together, our loved ones together. As if we are the glue and if we don’t do what we do – or not do what we don’t do! – then everything will instantly collapse. And I’m not talking here about those things that life and love require that we simply get up and keep doing every day; I’m talking about all the extra ways we contort, twist ourselves out of shape, and take on burdens and responsibilities that are not ours to carry, driven by this nameless fear of imminent disaster.

I still vividly remember one of these personal moments of spin and swirl many moons ago. It wasn’t that my life was actually falling apart. In fact, externally, things seemed to be coming together, falling into place. But internally all was spin, and I felt as if this swirl was going to break out of my insides any moment and explode into my world.

I had to get out, get away, find some peace.

I took a walk down the quiet country lane that led away from the house where I was living. The rough grey tarmac wound gently ahead of me between high, dense Devon hedgerows; and behind the hedges great, ancient trees soared, stretching their branches into a canopy above the one lane road. Disturbed by only the occasional car, I could walk right down the centre of it on the sparse green sprinkling of moss and grass that wheels never touched. The silence was pierced only by the sounds of hedgerow birds and distant traffic; and glimpsed through the branches overhead, clouds swept by in their endless cycle.

The world spun on. In its spinning, it was holding together.

And it was holding together without my help.

Into my mind spun the one thought that could save me from all of my internal spin and swirl:

“In him all things hold together.”

And, right there and then, I knew this to be profoundly true. I couldn’t see it, but at that moment I could sense its truth with every fibre of my being. This holding together, this cohesion, was realer than the road beneath my feet, the hedgerows, trees, clouds, birds; realer than my own swirling thoughts and emotions. And these, too, he was holding together – infinitely tender and infinitely strong.

As a friend and I discussed this week, scientists know that molecules are held together by something, but they still don’t know what it is. I love that. And whatever they discover and whatever they name it, for me this mysterious cohesive force of love is Christ, “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation,” who is before all things, and for and through whom all things were created. “In him all things hold together." (Colossians 1)

He is the glue. Not me. Not you.

We can’t be the glue for ourselves or for each other. Though, when we truly realise this, the miracle is that we can be Christ for each other, embodying his ‘holding together’ for each other with love and care that are trusting and releasing, rather than fearful and controlling.

But, how to realise? How to remember?

Sometimes we simply need to get out of our little enclosed worlds – out into this wide, whirling, water-marked world – and open our eyes to ‘see’ and sense and know how true and firm and loving his holding is.

And sometimes we need to let go of a few of the planets we are trying to juggle, let them fall, let some solar systems seemingly spin out of control when we loosen our grip... and watch and wait. We desperately need to get free of the powerful illusion that we are the centre, or we will never see and experience what is true and real: In him all things hold together.

Sometimes, we have to allow things to fall apart in order to discover that the centre CAN and WILL hold, and that the centre is not us.

Deep water: the unreasonable demands of Jesus

Jesus asks so much of us. Too much. I’m reading many of his ‘hard sayings’ at the moment in my Lent readings from Richard Rohr, and am shocked. You know when you suddenly find you are able to read too-familiar words with fresh eyes? And the familiar words turn out to be scandalous, demanding: Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. If anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do not judge. Forgive. (Just have a look at Luke chapter 6 for an outrageous catalogue of commandments!)

What?!

Sometimes I can barely love those who love ME, let alone those who don’t! If I even suspect I am being ‘cursed’ (read: criticized, thought ill of, not supported) then what rises naturally in my heart is ‘cursing’ in return, though I curse myself for this too! My habitual movement of heart and hands is to cling and grasp and wrest back, not to let go and give away. And though I am not the most judgmental, unforgiving person I’ve ever met ;-) I am often disappointed by how easily judgment rises inside me and how resentment can secretly but vigorously take root in my heart.

So Jesus’ teachings are indeed ‘hard’ for me, and yet also strangely hope-inspiring when I actually read them as true challenge and real invitation, rather than just high and unreachable ideals. Because even while part of me cries out “That is impossible, unreasonable!”, I also trust this man. He lived this teaching, till the bitter end. He truly lived this new way of life, this new way of seeing, and he invited and continues to invite me into it too. And while this is in many ways terrifying, and sometimes discouraging when I see how far I have to go, I am also grateful that he DID, does, invite me into something better and higher. There was no sense in which Jesus said: “Look, guys, I’m someone special (I’m GOD, don’t you know?!) so I can do this – I can love and forgive and bless and heal – but I know you’re a different case. So don’t expect too much of yourselves – I know I don’t!”

It is a constant wonder to me how he managed to seamlessly combine in himself both this uncompromising call to, basically, be like God – “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” – and also so much compassion and understanding and grace for human failure and frailty. I guess that’s what true mercy looks like. It knows who it is, and what is possible. It knows there is so much more for us all. It will never give up, will always persevere. And it will never stop calling to us, waiting for us.

In other words, God truly IS towards us, towards me, how he calls me to be towards others and myself. He only calls me to be merciful because he is constantly and generously pouring out mercy on my unmerciful self, and it is this mercy that makes living mercy possible for me.

Richard Rohr puts it like this: “It appears that humans can only know themselves through the gaze of others. We call it mirroring. [...] [In the Gospel] we have total positive mirroring perfectly described. Receive God’s compassion, and you will be able to be compassionate. Do not receive negative judgment from God, and you will not be judgmental yourself. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Give and it shall be given to you. Jesus describes a perfect reciprocity between what we have received or not received and how we will give or not give. It is all a matter of staying in “the wondrous loop.””

So it seems to me that it really matters how I read these hard sayings, how I look into the ‘mirror’ of the Bible. I can easily read them as condemnation and judgment on me (though why would God be judging me even as he tells me not to judge?!) but this takes me OUT of that ‘wondrous loop’ in which God is and gives to me what I need. Or I can see in these hard sayings what I believe was intended: an incredible invitation from Jesus to enter and partake of the very life of God. If this is true then Jesus’ challenging teaching does a kind of double-work in us: it is meant to make us despair of ourselves and our unmercy, and become desperate for more of God’s mercy for and in and through us, so that we finally fall onto and into it. It is NOT meant to make us despair and give up hope, or think we have to be merciful in order to earn God’s mercy. It is an invitation to take the plunge and dive deep into the bottomless, audacious, un-earnable, freely given, life-transforming mercy of God, by actively participating in this ‘perfect reciprocity’, daring both to give and receive what I need, what we all need.

I long for this. I need this. I taste it now and then and am desperate for more. What about you? Do you long for it, have you tasted it? What are your struggles with mercy? Have you discovered any secrets to 'diving deeper'? I believe we desperately need to pool both our wisdom and our struggle in order to dive deeper on this journey into mercy. So please share!!

Preparing a table

How many different tables did you sit around today? Who did you share a meal with? What did that mealtime mean to you, and to those with you?

Shared time around a table is one of the simple and often taken-for-granted blessings of life, bringing us not just nourishment and enjoyment of taste and texture, but also connection, communication, and celebration. For me today, each ‘table’ – both actual and metaphorical– that has been prepared for me, or that I have prepared, has revealed a unique aspect of what the gift of a mealtime can be...

A table of togetherness and communication: The breakfast table with Amélie was a time for me to love her by laying on delicious, nourishing food for her to enjoy – a whole-wheat maple cinnamon waffle with sea-salted butter, organic apple slices, fruit juice, and fair trade hot chocolate made with local raw milk. And while she ate and I pottered, we talked about both of our dreams that night, and she shared her excitement about the day, and her thoughts on life and chance and death and heaven. As we got ready to walk to church in the sun, she said what a nice time of talking it had been, and I agreed – we had communicated and reconnected.

A table of friendship and familiarity: The early morning ‘Celtic liturgy’ service that we participate in begins with freshly brewed fair trade coffee and something home-baked – usually by gifted and open-handed Carol, today some yummy cinnamon raisin scones – laid out on the café counter for anyone to grab before they sit down at one of the tables. It is a casual, relaxed meeting with friends over a bite to eat, before we enjoy the familiarity of a home-grown liturgy that is meaningful to us as individuals and as a community, with time to read aloud the lectionary readings for the day and share our thoughts, and later our prayers. In words from the liturgy, the blessing of this time is in both its ‘mystery and predictability’.

A table of forgiveness and mercy: And then, each week as part of this gathering, we are invited by the liturgy to: “Come to this table, you who have much faith, and you who would like to have more; you who have been here often, and you who have not been for a long time; you who have tried to follow Jesus, and you who have failed. Come; it is Christ who invited us to meet him here.” We then pass the bread and wine to each other, and I was struck this morning by the fact that I was passed the elements by someone who I know has needed to extend forgiveness to me recently, and that I in turn passed it on to Jeremy, whose love for me must constantly be expressed in forgiveness and mercy, and to whom I too extend these gifts of love. A little later, we read part of St. Patrick’s prayer, the Deer’s Cry or Breastplate, and I was moved again by the affirmation that Christ is on my left and my right – embodied in these two with whom I exchange forgiveness – and by the prayer that Christ “be in the heart of each to whom I speak, in the mouth of each who speaks unto me.” Though I often wish the prayer affirmed Christ’s presence in MY heart and mouth, I see the profound truth hidden in the fact that Christ is always found in the ‘other’, if I have eyes to see.

A table of blessing and family: The children were leading the later, ‘family’ service today, and Amélie and I had been asked to give out the bread and wine along with other parent-child teams (two communion tables in one morning!). I felt richly blessed and privileged to be alongside my daughter as she solemnly offered the plate of bread to each person with the carefully memorized words “The body of Christ broken for you”, and as I then offered the ‘wine’. Many who came to the table we ‘prepared’ were families, children, and I was thankful for the mysterious and inexplicable yet also very concrete and simple nature of this sacrament – it is a table at which we are all welcome.

A table of celebration and laughter: It felt like the first day of spring today – finally, a warm weekend! – and we decided to enjoy an impromptu picnic with friends in the sun in St Andrews, a local seaside town where we could lay out all our offerings of French bread and chicken, hummus and olives, grapes and chips (aka crisps!) on a picnic blanket overlooking the glistening ocean, share stories and jokes, laugh, and celebrate together the blessings of friendship, humanity, good food and sunshine.

A table of generosity and beauty: The next table that was prepared for me was something of a surprise – a little side table (that Amélie laboured over setting up for me in the garden as I snoozed in the hot car!) bedecked with pretty cloth and flower vase, in order to beautify my first hammock experience of the year. It was a heartfelt, thoughtful act of generosity, much like the card and flowers she spent ALL her money on for me yesterday, and so as I swung in the hammock I was basking in this spontaneous and undeserved love, as much as in the sun. With her, more than with anyone else in this world, I am constantly aware of my shortcomings and failures, and so her tenderness and generosity towards me undoes me. It is mercy and grace poured into my cup and overflowing. I have shared so many table-times with my family – some happy, and some miserable, angry or stressful – but still we gather to meet and eat together every day, demonstrating our ongoing love and mercy towards each other as we are. I remember an idea from Dallas Willard in The Divine Conspiracy, that the Bible’s talk of compassion or mercy (both from God to us and from us to each other, especially those closest to us) would best be translated by the word pity, the point being that it is something we don’t like to admit our need of, a word we might even be insulted by, but is in fact something we DESPERATELY need. We are all so wounded (and wounding) that only pity makes life and love possible for us. So, today, I feel pitied, and I drink it in like a cup of cold water in a desertland.

A table of sharing and connection: My last table of the day was a weekly potluck meal with friends, made possible by the sacrificial and joyful hospitality of Grace and Mat. The food is always wonderful and varied, the atmosphere is comfortable and happy, good conversations take place, connections are renewed or created, and there is usually at least one song – and sometimes lots! – playing on the radio Classic Countdown (from 1975 today!) that prompts over half the room to stand up in the kitchen and boogie! The sharing of the food at such a gathering – each offering unique and often complementary to the other parts – mirrors the best of what a mealtime can be, as each person shares the truth and gift of who they are, and receives in turn the gift of the other.

“Christ beside me, on my left and my right.”

So, dear friends and readers and fellow journeyers on the path of ‘Learning to Savour’ all that life offers, I would love to hear (if you are in fact there, and have read this far!) about a recent meal of yours and what it meant to you – either in the simple enjoyment of some great food, or in the gift of those you shared it with. This will have to take the place, for now, of sharing a REAL meal together! Please share...